An especially multimedia work is stored on an information support accessible by reading, said work to be read by an appliance comprising a control unit provided with navigation means associated with a representation, on a visualization screen, of the navigation actions carried out. The support stores a composition (authoring) comprising pages to be displayed on the screen and links between said pages according to navigation actions carried out therein. According to the invention, the composition contains a set of pages of choices, each enabling a user to carry out, by means of the navigation means, one of a plurality of choices for forming a combination of choices, the links between said pages being such that the work can only be read if the different choices carried out correspond to a pre-determined combination. In this way, the reading can only be carrier out, due to a simple authoring process, when a pre-determined code is introduced.
Legal claims defining the scope of protection, as filed with the USPTO.
1. A non-transitory machine readable medium that stores instructions for accessing and playing a multimedia work stored on the medium, wherein when the instructions are executed by a control unit: display, by the control unit, a collection of pages associated with the multimedia work and stored on the medium and distinct from the multimedia work, wherein the pages include a set of links that are selectable through user input and logically link the pages; provide a navigation means to allow selection, by a user, the links on the pages; and play, by the control unit, the multimedia work in response to the selection of a predetermined combination of navigation choices between links on the pages, wherein successive navigation choices that do not correspond to a predetermined combination of navigation choices do not allow the multimedia work to be played by the control unit, wherein the collection of pages comprises at least a reference page, a first page, and a second page, wherein the first page and the second page have an identical appearance, wherein the reference page includes a first link to the first page and a second link to the second page, wherein the first link is part of the predetermined combination of navigation choices and the second link is not part of the predetermined combination of navigation choices.
2. The non-transitory machine readable medium according to claim 1 , wherein the predetermined combination of navigation choices is represented by a sequence of the pages.
3. The non-transitory machine readable medium according to claim 1 or claim 2 , wherein the collection of pages includes a first set of selection pages which are linked together according to a process in which all of the link choices corresponding to the predetermined combination of navigation choices are chosen, and a second set of selection pages of identical appearance to at least some of the pages of the first set, wherein the second set of pages are linked together independently of the choice effected, and linked to the respective pages of the first set for any erroneous choice in the said respective pages.
4. The non-transitory machine readable medium according to claim 3 , wherein the link choices on the pages are displayed in the form of alphanumerical characters, drawings or words.
5. The non-transitory machine readable medium according to claim 1 , wherein the multimedia work is recorded on the medium in a multitrack format that has at least one video and audio track that is played by default as a result of direct access to a file on the medium without selection of navigation choices, and another video and audio track that is played if the predetermined combination of navigation choices is selected, wherein the default video and audio track contains decoy content, whereas the other track contains the original content of the multimedia work as it was originally intended to be viewed.
6. A method for accessing and playing a multimedia work stored on a medium, comprising: displaying, by a control unit, a collection of pages associated with the multimedia work and stored on the medium and distinct from the multimedia work, wherein the pages include a set of links that are selectable through user input and logically link the pages; providing a navigation means to allow selection, by a user, the links on the pages; and playing, by the control unit, the multimedia work in response to the selection of a predetermined combination of navigation choices between links on the pages, wherein successive navigation choices that do not correspond to a predetermined combination of navigation choices do not allow the multimedia work to be played by the control unit, wherein the collection of pages comprises at least a reference page, a first page and a second page, wherein the first page and the second page have an identical appearance, wherein the reference page includes a first link to the first page and a second link to the second page, wherein the first link is part of the predetermined combination of navigation choices and the second link is not part of the predetermined combination of navigation choices.
7. The method according to claim 6 , wherein the predetermined combination of navigation choices is represented by a sequence of the pages.
8. The method according to claim 7 , wherein the collection of pages includes a first set of selection pages and a second set of selection pages of identical appearance to at least some of the pages of the first set, wherein a correct choice effected on a page of the first set constitutes a link to a following page of the first set, in that any choice effected on a page of the second set constitutes a link to a following page of the second set, and in that an incorrect choice effected on a page of the first set constitutes a link to a respective page of the second set.
9. The method according to claim 8 , wherein link choices on the pages are displayed in the form of alphanumerical characters, drawings or words.
10. The method according to any of claims 6 to 9 , wherein when an audiovisual file stored on the medium is directly accessed to play the multimedia work, the playing of the multimedia work corresponds to accessing an track of the audiovisual file distinct from the default track for the file.
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November 30, 2006
December 2, 2014
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